Edward, of another name
by Yin Long Nocturne
Summary: Bella doesn't get there in time to stop Edward from walking into the sun. Warning: character death, suicide, vamp to human transformation. Full notes inside.
1. Prologue

I wrote this a bit over a month ago, but it was part of a larger plot that I couldn't get it to connect to, so it wasn't posted then. Now I have the connection and the beginning of chapter 1, so you get the prologue.

**Detailed Warnings: **Edward attempts to commit assisted suicide, but instead falls into a coma and eventually dies anyway. His death isn't exactly permanent, but the resolution of that is in the next chapter.

Updated 4-11-15

* * *

**It was all over the headlines for days. The man who'd walked into the sunlight at the Porta all'Arco and mysteriously collapsed. A perfectly healthy, mid twenties caucasian male with no ID on him. The police did a cursory investigation but with no missing persons matching his description and his DNA matching no one's on file there was little they could do. **

Meanwhile, in an undisclosed hospital room, the mystery man lay in a coma with no sign of waking.

* * *

At first Bella had hoped. She had thought that Alice had made a mistake, that Edward hadn't stepped out into the midday sun. The flight had landed an hour too late, delayed by bad weather over the Atlantic. When they'd arrived, Edward was nowhere to be seen, and the Volturi were playing it all off. They weren't willing to admit anything, and no amount of Alice offering herself as a reward got anything out of Aro.

But Bella still hoped.

* * *

It was Jasper that called it first. No stranger to the casualties of war and death, even in the immortal. It was him who first admitted that Edward must be dead. No vampire could survive the midday sun, not so close to the Volturi. The price of exposure was death, and the Volturi was swift to enact it's punishments. Edward would have fallen before he could have even taken a step.

It was Jasper who told the coven it was time to mourn.

* * *

Jacob's only thought was that, if he could, he would kill Edward again for what he'd done to Bella. He was the one to pick up her pieces, hold her together until she could knit the fragments of her life back together. His pack was being run ragged, Sam and the council enforcing extra patrols, for fear of the coven rampaging in their grief.

If Jacob could, he would have killed Edward himself.

* * *

It was Charlie Swan who asked the Cullens what had happened to their son. It was him who made them spin a tale of depression and anxiety that lead to suicide. And they began to resent him for the necessary sullying of Edward reputation. But it was the Sheriff who told everyone else, and who organised a memorial.

Charlie Swan always looked out for his daughter, even when that meant making sure she mourned her boyfriend properly.

* * *

It was Alec who saw Edward walk out into the square. He spent weeks doubting his eyes. He had been preparing to take Edward's head, only for him to collapse. Alec had watched, frozen beneath his grey cloak, as the humans had swarmed Edward's limp form, yelling for emergency services.

It was Alec who lied, telling Aro that Edward had died, killed before he could expose them.

* * *

Talia was the name of the nurse who looked after the coma patient who had collapsed in the square. She was the one who called the doctor's as his heart began to fade. Talia helped them revive him three times, before they didn't react fast enough. To her, he was another patient. Another face to remember that didn't leave the hospital.

She never knew his name was Edward.

* * *

The mortician who did Edward's autopsy was Antonio. He was baffled, there was nothing physically wrong with the young man on his table. No discernable reason for him to have died. Antonio mourned the young life, full of so much unfulfilled potential, not knowing that it had already seen centuries.

Like Talia, Antonio never knew the young man's name was Edward.

* * *

Aro knew of Alec's lie. But he continued it nonetheless, and Edward never reappeared. There were no rumours of people who sparkled in the sunlight. No whispers of unnatural beings living alongside humans. So he left Edward's collapse uninvestigated. There was no reason for him to follow it up. Edward's death had cowed the Olympic coven, they didn't think further on turning the girl Edward had loved.

To Aro, Edward had still served his purpose.

* * *

When Edward took that step forward, out onto the cobbled stones of the square, he knew he was orchestrating his death. He knew the Volturi would never stand for a vampire to reveal themselves to the midday crowds at one of Italy's most famous tourists locations. He was counting on their swiftness. He didn't suspect that it wasn't Alec that killed him. Edward didn't know he spent a month in a coma.

Edward didn't know he died as a human.

* * *

Alessia was an assistant in the morgue. She was the one who secreted the body of the unknown man away to be buried. Something in her wouldn't let him be turned to ash in the cremation ovens. She buried him on a hillside outside of Volterra, under a small grave marker that never had a name inscribed.

She never knew why she risked everything to bury a man she knew nothing of.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter summary: Edward wakes.

A/N: It's taken a while to write this, but I have to say this style of writing is amazingly pressure free. Hopefully you guys like this, I think I'll continue writing anyway, but all feedback/comments are appreciated.

* * *

When Edward wakes, he gasps in a lungful of air. And then wonders at the reflex that had long been dampened. Breathing, as far back as he remembers has been something he did to keep up the human facade. Panic flooded him, and as it swallowed him he heard his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. The black recedes after only a few minutes, long dead reflexes forcing air into his lungs again when the lack of oxygen makes him pass out.

Edward's eyes flutter and he groans; the thudding in his ears hasn't gone away.

* * *

It's an old man, sitting on his back porch, who first notices the stranger. Covered in dirt, with twigs and leaves matted into his hair and clothes. The old man would be afraid; but the lost, desperate look in the young man's eyes makes him think of a starved kitten. Vicious when cornered, yet sweet if well taken care of.

He offers the young man a cup of tea, and the use of his shower.

* * *

Edward leaves before first light the next morning. He hadn't meant to pass out on the well loved sofa in the living room while he was waiting for his clothes to dry. But the tea had been sweet and the blanket soft and warm. He takes the coat and the small packages of food left on the small table by his head.

Edward resolutely doesn't think about the organ beating a tattoo against his ribs.

* * *

The old man merely smiles at the curled up ball under the blanket. Very much like a kitten he murmurs softly into the twilight. He pulls an old coat that no longer has an owner, but is still thick and warm, out of his closet. It had once been his son's, but this young man needs it more than he does the memories. He puts into paper and twine packages the sorts of things he knows will keep. The old man hums softly, remembering teaching his son how to do this, before one of their many hiking trips.

He is sure the young man curled up asleep on his sofa has a long way to travel.

* * *

Edward treks through the woods. He doesn't want to see any people. He eats the food the old man gave him; when he gets so hungry he nearly passes out. So determined to not think about the heart beating in his chest, the lungs that push at his ribcage as they suck in air like bellows. It's only later that he realises his vision didn't go hazy red around the edges; and that the jerky tasted really quite nice.

Edward only barely remembers what human food is supposed to taste like.

* * *

A young girl runs into Edward near the top of the mountain. All giggles and sunny smiles and twin tails tied with ribbons. So very human, so fragile. He stares blankly, he doesn't know anymore how to react. The words of apology catch in his throat as he stares at hers. It should spark something terrible in him. He hasn't drunk anything for at least two weeks, maybe more.

It doesn't, and Edward no longer knows what to think about that.

* * *

The girl's name is Felli. She was racing her brother up the trail, he'd gotten distracted by something, a bug maybe, halfway there. But she loved getting to the summit first, having the top of the world to herself for a while. The man she runs into is a surprise. But the lost look in his eyes makes her want to hug him, her mother says hugs make everything better. Instead, she gives him a flower she'd found at the base of the trail. A pretty red and white thing that's dwarfed in his large hands.

She tells him that she'll see him again, they climb this mountain all the time after all, they'll both be there again someday.

* * *

Edward stares that the flower in his hands for a long time. He'd slipped off into the woods that border the trail. Not wanting to be found by the girl's family. She'd been a tiny slip of a thing, and the flower is just as delicate. Tiny spines that are so small they are merely soft to touch covering the undersides of the leaves.

The petals look like they're dripping blood; a widening trail from base to tip and over the curling points at the end.

* * *

That night, in the sheltered lee of the hill, Edward twirls the flower between his fingers. Staring into the whorls of colour that flash and flicker. It reminds him of the past. Of blood and ashen skin, of diamonds in the sunlight and immeasurable strength. Slowly, over these past days, something in Edward has come to realise and accept what has happened.

That he has been intimately, irrevocably changed.

* * *

To Edward, it seems that the flower is his turning point. He wakes early the next morning, with the blossom cradled delicately between his palms. Looking at it, he allows himself to feel the heartbeat thudding in his ears. To hear the rush of air into and out of his lungs. All the things he had resolutely not been thinking about.

As if this had opened the floodgates, his stomach growls.

* * *

Edward jumps, eyes automatically flicking over his surroundings. There is nothing there, no animals or humans to disturb the pre-dawn stillness. Another gurgle sounds and his stomach twinges. Blinking in surprise, he looks down, past the flower still held in his hands. Staring as if he could see straight through the coat and shirt and into his very skin. Mindful to keep the flower from falling, he presses on hand questioningly under his ribs.

So this is what hunger feels like for humans.

* * *

The packages the old man gave him are almost empty. He will have to venture back into human civilisation. Edward feels a pang of anxiety, what if the Volturi are still looking for him. But he soon dismisses it, he does not know how much time has passed. It could have been years, he doesn't know what happened to him, he could have lain 'dead' for a long time.

Resolve set, Edward tucks the flower behind his ear, and makes his way back to the trail the girl had come racing up.


End file.
